


Game Night at Beacon Academy: TABARZIN 20,000

by Kiiratam



Series: Game Nights at Beacon Academy & Beyond [6]
Category: RWBY, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, Poorhammer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 09:03:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20405161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: This game night, there is Only War.COMBATANTS:Colonel Arc of the Remnant MegaArmyBroodlord 'Valkyrie' of the Vorpalite SwarmCaptain Rose of the Ghûl GuardExarch Schnee of the AeldauphinExarch Belladonna of the FeldauphinBey Xiao Long of the Stellar JanissariesThe GRIMMTakes place between Volumes 1 and 2. (My BMBLB fic index)





	Game Night at Beacon Academy: TABARZIN 20,000

"Jaune, what am I looking at?" Weiss was in fine form tonight. Snooty, with just a hint of actual disdain. Yang savored the bouquet, rolled it around her brain.

  
"**Tabarzin 20,000**!" Jaune waved a hand over the third floor common room. He'd gotten Yang and Nora to steal the coffee tables from other common rooms, so there was actually enough table space for the display. And what a display it was. The coffee tables had been pushed together to form a massive table, some four feet wide and twelve feet long. On it was a layer of gray felt, and a collection of variously shaped boxes, doohickeys and bobbles, all spray painted in various earth-tones. On one end of the table was piled a stack of black shoe boxes with starscapes on them. It wasn't going to win any awards in_ Svart Trow_ magazine, Yang thought, but for a week of improvisation, it wasn't bad.

  
"You realize that tells me nothing, right?"

  
Yang elbowed Jaune. "C'mon, give her the full tour!" She turned to Blake, smiled at her. "Blake too."

  
"Okay, okay, just - everyone get into the room." Weiss rolled her eyes and stepped to the side. Blake followed her, looking at Jaune, waiting for answers. Nora and Ruby zoomed into the room, went immediately to the table and started chattering in a excited voices. Yang just settled back against the island and watched. "Ruby, Nora! I'm trying to set atmosphere here!"

  
Nora mimed zipping her mouth shut. Ruby settled for zooming around, hands clasped over her mouth, eyes wide. Pointing out a crude little drawing of a person falling out of a top story window, and pulling on Nora's arm to get her to come over and look.

  
Turning to face his captive audience, Jaune said, in as deep and gravelly a voice as he could manage, "It is twenty thousand years after Man and Faunus left Remnant behind. But they have found no great peace among the stars, no unity. Only ancient alien empires and wretched hives of villany. Monsters lurk in the space between the stars. Bloodthirsty gods laugh, their manipulations sending untold millions to their deaths. Only one thing is certain. On the final frontier, the axe is your only friend." He grinned at them.

  
Weiss just closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and looked back at him with a skeptical expression.

  
"At least this game admits Faunus exist." Blake muttered.

  
Yang winced. Blake had not liked _WereGrimm: the Facade_ at all. But at least she'd realized that while reading the rulebook, and hadn't gone to all the trouble of setting up a game. With Blake's plan to run a game of _WereGrimm_ ruined, and Ruby's F&F game on hiatus while she tried to recover from her players Doing Stupid Stuff, Jaune had volunteered.

  
She really wasn't sure about **Tabarzin 20,000**. Her dad had played, but it had been one of the things he'd done with Summer. Yang had vague memories of the two of them playing on the dining room table. Summer, heavily pregnant with Ruby, still beating her dad's butt, laughing like a loon the whole time. Saying, nearly crying, "Tai, you can't strategize for sh-" And her father reaching over and covering her mouth, pointing at Yang. Yang remembered bursting out laughing at Summer's expression.

  
During the bad days, she'd come across their collections, carelessly stuffed into a box in the attic. Had pulled them out to look at. Knew enough to keep them safely in the attic, where they wouldn't set her dad off. Had looked at the dozens of beautifully painted metal figures, and carefully repacked them. Hadn't raided them for figures to play F&F, even when Ruby moaned about having to murder dust bunnies and little pink cubes. Even when one of the old modules she had bought at a book sale was a crossover between the worlds of F&F and **Tabarzin 20,000**.

  
Over the years, Yang had kept some distance from it. Early on, it was just that she didn't have the spare lien. She'd gazed, open-mouthed, at the display window for the new **Tabarzin 20,000: Astral Derelict** game. The tiny squad of Stellar Janissaries, in green and gold, and the hordes of Vorpalites, electric blue and black. Looked at the price tag, and went off to the used bookstore, to buy picture-books for Ruby. Though she'd compromised at the bookstore, and gotten an old **Tabarzin 20,000** army book for the Stellar Janissaries. It had lots of pictures in pretty colors for Ruby, and lots of new words for Yang to puzzle out. Yang did have to hide it from her father, but she just put it with all the other smut she'd filched out of her father's library.

  
Later, she'd gotten into motorcycles, and had to learn to make Ember Celica, and still had to take care of Ruby and her dad, and she'd just run out of time. Especially hobby time. Especially when she would have had to learn how to assemble the miniatures, and paint them (though maybe some of her airbrushing skills would transfer), and buy all the latest rulebooks, and buy all the models... She had some of their games on her scroll, had checked out a few novels from the Signal and Beacon libraries. They hadn't blown her socks off, but she'd learned enough to vaguely follow along. Enough that she knew Jaune was more of less just quoting the introduction text from every rulebook.

  
Jaune motioned everyone over to him, as he went for the stack of star-patterned shoe boxes. "Okay, everyone. Ren's obsessing over an art project, and Pyrrha's getting her armor refitted. So we've got two extra armies." He looked through the stack, looking at labels on the bottom. "Nora, your Vorpalites." He handed her the box, and she cackled, caressing the box. "Ruby, Yang, do either of you want a specific army?"

  
"I can wait until everyone else has one." Yang wanted Blake and Weiss to get an army they liked.

  
Ruby vibrated back and forth. "Gimme something in red!"

  
"Sis, that's like, five factions."

  
Looking through his stack, Jaune handed her a box. "Ghûl Guards okay? Red, black, and bone."

  
She started laughing, taking the box and going around the far side of the couch to peer inside. Still laughing. Between Ruby and Nora, Yang had the feeling she was surrounded by madwomen.

  
"Ooooookay." Jaune turned to Weiss and Blake. "So the big question right now is what kind of army do you want to play? Or do you want to look at them and choose based on that?"

  
"What are the options?" Blake asked.

  
"Well, see, that was kind of the question I was hoping to avoid, since it'll take a minute, but here goes." Jaune took a deep breath. "So the central conflict is between the MegaKingdom and all the various alien empires and I guess all the other non-alien empires that are still empire-level threats. So existential threats all around. Oh yeah, and it turns out the Grimm followed us off Remnant because- you know what, I'm just not going to get into the details of that but there totally are details if you want them later. As far as factions go, you've got like a dozen factions within the MegaKingdom, and I really didn't feel like making _all_ of them, so I'm just going to skim over the eight different flavors of Astral Knights that I didn't make armies of, and just go with the ones I did. So there are the Ghûl Guards, who Ruby got, and are basically vampire angels, the Stellar Janissaries, who are the closest this setting gets to a good guy, and use a lot of fire and close combat, and the Grimmbound, who are basically WereBeowolves. Then there's the MegaArmy, who are just regular people who are basically given a t-shirt and flashlight and told to go fight off Grimm and they pretty much manage it through weight of numbers and sheer grit. I really like them, but that could just be because they have cool tanks and the most actual strategy of play. And then there's the Order of Our Lady of Buttkicking, which isn't their actual name, but it's what my sisters always called them because they all ran Order armies in the local games, and _wrecked_ everyone!"

  
Jaune grinned at them, plunged back in. "Nora got the Vorpalites, which are basically alien death bugs with sharp pointy everything. And Nora has some actual models, which kind of makes the rest of the armies look bad because this is really low budget Tabarzin. But she made Ren paint them, because the fan rule in the hobby is that you can afford the models, paint the models, or play the game, but only two of those."

  
"Uh, Jaune?" Yang stepped between him and her team-mates, who were looking overwhelmed. "_Brief_ summary?"

  
"Oh. Yeah." He looked up for a second, marshaling his thoughts. "There are the Grimm, who are what you'd expect, just bigger and scarier. And in different colors. But they're kind of controversial, and there are rules for running them as enemies to everyone. The Aeldauphin Empire, who are basically a whole army of Whitley's. Because F&F had a crossover with 20K, and it got out of hand. You could even use your Whitley figure as a commander, Weiss."

  
Weiss nodded slowly. If she wasn't already up against the wall, Yang was pretty sure she'd be backing away slowly. "Briefer, Jaune."

  
"There are the Mantellians, who are- well, they're red, four-armed slime molds who really like fighting for fun. There are the Siriusians, who are squishy aliens with ray guns and weird technology. And the Feldauphins, who are more evil Aeldauphins. And that's it. That I have armies for. Right now. Here."

  
Blake asked, "How do the Feldauphin fight?"

  
"Dirty." Jaune's answer was instantaneous.

  
"I'll take them." She held out her hand, and after a bit of digging, Jaune handed her the box.

  
"Weiss?"

  
She sighed. "Just give me the Aeldauphin."

  
"Yang?"

  
"Stellar Janissaries."

  
Jaune laughed. "How did I know?" He handed out the final boxes, and set the rest under the tables. "Okay, so if everyone opens their boxes, you'll find dice, your army, your army's special rules, and the table of objectives. Yang, I think your usual dice roller can handle this - it's just a lot of d6s."

  
"Pretty sure I can't actually use Qrow's tricks on a whole fistful of dice at once, but okay." Yang opened her scroll and loaded up her dice roller. Opened up her box. Inside were ranks of heavily armored troops, in green and gold, printed on thick paper. They were folded so that they stood upright, with little discs of metal keeping them base down. There was also a large paper tank in the same colors and style, with a giant flamethrower instead of a main gun. There was a little plastic box of six-sided dice (also in the army colors), and below everything else Yang could see a few folded sheets of paper.

  
"Before everyone starts reading and looking at your armies," Jaune said, "You've got assigned spots around the table. So look for your army's name, and sit there. And ask me if you've got any questions. I'm going to get the MegaArmy and the Grimm set up."

* * *

It seemed simple enough. Yang had her Ifrit Heavy Flame Tank, her Stellar Janissary Bey, three squads with heckhound axes, and two more squads waiting to drop onto the battlefield. All of her special rules were to the point: get to the fight faster, stay longer, hit harder. Her army was set up on the south edge of the battlefield, in a little plaza off the main east-west road. Jaune had set the Grimm up in the tangle of buildings to the west. There were more Grimm than she ever wanted to see in real life. Cyberbeowolves, Ursai mounting tank cannons, Nevermores with bombs. More she really hoped were only phantasms in the minds of artists. They outnumbered her Janissaries by a considerable margin. At the west end of the table was Blake and her Feldauphin - a bunch of small units of lithe combatants in tight-fitting purple and black armor. Her numbers weren't much better than Yang's. No tanks, but some light aircraft.

  
Across the table from Yang was, west to east, Weiss, Ruby and Nora. Weiss's Aeldauphin were in white and blue, and she'd gone and gotten her Whitley figure, to replace the paper commander. Her army was about the same size as Blake's - small, elite units, with a smattering of light vehicles. Ruby's Ghûl Guard looked very similar to Yang's, just in red and bone-white. And she had a bunch of bikers, instead of a heavy tank. Nora... Nora had a horde of Vorpalites. Yang couldn't even count squads, it was just a mass of chitin. Some of which were actually made of plastic, not paper. Jaune was right about them making everything else look bad. They were bright pink, darkening to a blackish-green on their backs. One towered over all the rest, like a wingless dragon. Didn't quite match the rest of the paper figures, which were electric blue instead of pink.

  
Jaune was set up across from Nora, on Yang's right, in ranks of tan and gold. And if he didn't quite have Nora's numbers of infantry, he had more vehicles than everyone else combined. None the size of Yang's Ifrit, but still.

  
Dice clattered, and Jaune looked up from his papers. "Okay, so the MegaArmy is here to kill or capture the Stellar Janissary Bey and the Ghûl Guard Captain."

  
"What?" Ruby stared at him from across the table. "The Grimm are _right there_."

  
He shrugged. "Orders are orders. Yang, what're your objectives?"

  
Yang tapped her scroll, cross-referenced the results with her table. "The Janissaries are here to hold objective Blue, and destroy Grimm." She looked up. "Where's objective Blue?"

  
On her left, Blake pointed at a blue flag on top of a toppled paper towel tube/collapsed high rise. Located directly between the Grimm, Aeldauphin, and Feldauphin forces.

  
Stretching out her arms, Yang said, "Right, through the Grimm and to the objective."

  
"Just what I'd expect." Jaune nodded at Blake. "What are the Feldauphin here for?"

  
Rolling her dice, Blake checked her table. "A secret objective, and... Take control of objective Red for one round, and escape off of my starting board edge with the objective in my possession." She looked around, pointed at the red flag on the far side of the board, in the middle of the MegaArmy.

  
"Probably stealing something." Jaune said, turned to Weiss. "What about the Aeldauphin?"

  
Weiss double-checked the information at the top of her objectives sheet, rolled her dice, and read off, "A secret objective, and take and hold objective Green." Yang pointed at the Green flag sharing the plaza with her army. "Great, I've got to dislodge heavily armed maniacs."

  
"Weiss, I think that's _all_ of us." Ruby went ahead and rolled, cackled at the results. "Objective one: Kill at least half of your opponents' commanders. Objective two: Destroy as many enemies as possible."

  
Sighing, Weiss said, "Speaking of heavily armed maniacs..."

  
Nora had rolled as well. "Destroy as many enemies as possible, while taking and holding objective Yellow." She pointed out the flag between her and Ruby. "Target in sight. Commence breaking."

* * *

With enough troops to split into two sections, Nora had sent her Vorpagon Rex and Vorpalwight Armorcleavers west, and her hordes of Vorpalmites and Vorpalkites south. Jaune had arranged his infantry in depth, choking the Vorpalite war machine with corpses. Of course, more corpses was what Nora wanted, so... Jaune's armored detachment had swung around to the east-west road, and was hauling tread to close with the Ghûl Guard and the Stellar Janissaries.

  
Ruby's heavy infantry were waiting out in the open, forcefields active, and soul-eating glaives in hand. Her bikers had swung up to harry Nora's advance, and Ruby had sent a squad of Longfangs up to the buildings above objective Yellow, sniping down at the Vorpalites. For Ruby, that was a lot of restraint. Yang really didn't envy whoever actually came to grips with her.

  
Seeing that giant mess, and wanting nothing to do with alien hordes, traitors, and her nominal allies, Yang had just swung her entire force west to face the Grimm and, eventually, objective Blue. She was going to have to contest the main road if she wanted passage for her heavy tank, but right now, there were plenty of targets. Yang had tight ranks drawn up around her tank, and the first wave of Grimm had been annihilated by fire and axe. The anti-tank Ursai had gotten some good shots in, though. She still had her reserves off the table, waiting for a good target. The temptation was, of course, to just drop her reserves on Blue, and Hold The Line. But even Janissary Drop Troops needed support. They were fine for flanking operations, and if she didn't have another option, Yang would order them to drop on Blue - and hope they were on target. But dropping them in-between Aeldauphin, Feldauphin, _and_ Grimm? Bad plan.

  
Blake's Feldauphin had just scaled the nearest buildings, and were parkouring their way east towards their objective, across the rooftops. Blake's aircraft were shooting flechette storms at the Nevermore bombers - more from a lack of targets than anything, Yang suspected. Her Janissaries were pointedly out of Blake's way - plenty of time for them to get smashed on the run to Red or back. The Feldauphin would have to deal with the MegaArmy to get to Red, and since Jaune was coming for Yang's commander...

  
Under Whitley, Weiss' Aeldauphin were driving east - mostly. One of her vehicles had hover-jumped to a tall building, and was preparing to start raining down death on all and sundry. And she'd sent out some hoverjet troopers to harass Blake's advance.

  
There was a ton to keep track of, and Yang was pretty sure she'd missed stuff already. At least Jaune had sent them all a program on their scrolls to help. Yang had to keep swapping back and forth between it and her dice roller, which was a bit annoying.

  
Jaune looked over at Yang. "Aren't you going to do anything about those Feldauphin? They're slavers, after all."

  
"Yeah, but unlike you, they're not out for my head. They're even shooting at the Grimm."

  
"Well, that's all my commanders need to hear. My troops are getting messages broadcast to them that these Janissaries are _traitors_ who won't protect them or their families from slavers." Jaune started moving his armor further west, some of them taking potshots at Yang's troops between the gaps in the buildings.

  
While Jaune and Nora resolved the gridlock between chitin and flesh, Blake scooted around the corner to stand next to Yang. Said quietly. "If you can engage the MegaArmy vehicles, and keep them off my back, I'll leave my aircraft behind to take out the Nevermores."

  
"I'm going to need some guarantees on that. Seeing how they're supposed to be on my side. And you lot are known to be backstabbers." Yang narrowed her eyes at her friend.

  
Blake shrugged. "They're shooting at you. Do what you want."

  
Weiss surveyed the battlefield from behind her skyscraper-mounted vehicle, looking for targets. That was going to be a problem. If Yang could just let the rest of the Aeldauphin get sucked into the scrum, she could drop one unit of Janissaries on their fire-support, and try to sweep everyone out of the western side of the map. She'd only have to defend Blue from one side.

  
Jaune groaned. "Well, everyone, the Vorpalites are going to break through. I hope the rest of you have appreciated the people I've lost for you. Yang, you're up."

  
It was a pretty simple turn, all told. Her flame tank broiled a bunch of AT-Ursai, making itself that much safer. She advanced a few paces with most of her infantry, close enough to bring the next rank of Grimm under fire. Flash-fried more of them, thinning the ranks that would charge at her. Looked at her last infantry unit in play. The Feldauphin were too far off to effectively engage - unless she knocked the buildings down and forced them to ground. But the MegaArmy light armor... those were within reach. Yang looked back and forth between Blake and Jaune. Moved her infantry in between the buildings surrounding the plaza. "Janissaries, remind these idiot troopers who they're messing with." She called out which vehicles she was targeting, tapping on her scroll for dice rolling. Placed actual dice next to the struck units, to remind herself what she'd hit.

  
After going toe to toe with cybered-up Grimm, light armored vehicles were easy. Even with how depressingly average her dice roller was rolling. About half of Jaune's column exploded, and the transported troops spilled out, painful vulnerable. "Oh, the humanity!" Jaune cried, rolling up casualties.

  
Looking at her potential targets, Yang decided to keep her drop troops in reserve for another round. There was plenty of time for everything to go pear-shaped, and she wanted reinforcements when it did.

  
Blake had her Feldauphin fire down at the huddled mass of infantry, sheltered by the wreckage of their vehicles. The flechettes ripped apart the MegaArmy troops, leaving mostly corpses. And Blake's forces kept merrily traveling along the rooftops.

  
"Thanks for breaking open my APCs, so she could murder the soft squishy people inside."

  
"There are appropriate times to arrest allied commanders, Jaune, and the middle of battle isn't it!"

  
True to her word, Blake left her aircraft behind, directing their fire towards the Nevermores.

  
"See, Yang? You held up your end, I held up mine." Blake smiled at her. But Blake had smiled, stroked her hair and lured her into a trap in Ruby's F&F game. Yang would stay on her guard.

  
Weiss' forces drove further east, skirting the MegaArmy carnage and skimming the edge of the Ghûl Guard's overwatch. They took a few hits, but got through reasonably intact. The Aeldauphin deployed themselves between the Vorpalite/MegaArmy scrum and the Feldauphin. It looked like a recipe for disaster to Yang. Weiss used her emplaced vehicle to fire on Blake's aircraft, bringing one down.

  
Yang shook her head. "You're only hurting yourself, Weiss. The Grimm are coming for everyone."

  
"I'll shoot at the Grimm later. Right now, I just want to take out Blake's air support. "

  
"You guys are the worst." Ruby had started moving her heavy infantry forward, into the impending six-way fight centered on the Aeldauphin. "I'm just trying to murder everyone I can, and all of you stay just out of range? Rude." The rest of her units kept harrying the Vorpalite advance. Her bikers fell back after chucking thermal grenades at the Vorpagon Rex.

  
Nora side-eyed Ruby, moving her injured Vorpagon Rex and Vorpalwights as far forward as she could, _almost_ getting into melee range. "Yeah, how horrible for you." She started resolving attacks against the MegaArmy, dice clattering.

  
Pulling out his scroll, Jaune started rolling for Grimm actions.

* * *

Yang didn't want to, but she was out of options. She had to deploy her drop troops to keep the Grimm contained. If they got anywhere _near_ the carnage that was happening to the east, they'd start multiplying, and everyone would lose.

  
"Janissary drop pods inbound." Yang set dice where she wanted her reinforcements to arrive. Checked her rules, then rolled the dice on her scroll. "Oh, thank the axe." On target arrivals.

  
Her drop pods screamed down from orbit, one pulping a Grimm behemoth, the other scattering a wave of Cyberbeowolf reinforcements. Her Janissaries poured out, gunning down the nearby disoriented Grimm.

  
"If you keep helping the Grimm, Weiss, I hope they eat you first."

  
Weiss smiled sweetly at her from across the table. "They won't." Her face fell. "I mean, they literally can't get to me without going through everyone else. " The main body of her Aeldauphin had been completely surrounded, trapped between the MegaArmy, Vorpalites and Ghûl Guards. Whitley had already fallen to the Ghûl Guard Captain.

  
"You did this to yourself, cousin." Blake started moving her aircraft off east. She'd dive-bombed the unsupported Aeldauphin artillery, destroying it. Looking up at Yang, Blake smiled. "Your backfield is all clear, Bey. I think I've got to scoot, though. Red is calling my name."

  
Yang shrugged. "You've done more against the Grimm than the rest of these meatheads. As far as Feldauphin betrayals go, this is pretty mild."

  
"It's a trick." Jaune interjected. "Get an axe."

  
Pointing down at her paper minis, Yang said, "Got plenty. Did you not notice them cutting through your APCs?"

  
"No, it's... nevermind."

  
The rest of Blake's forces tore through Jaune's screening elements, and were poised to attack his heavy weapon teams, almost all of whom were emplaced around the Red flag. Making matters even worse for the MegaArmy was that the Vorpalmites had finished chewing through the line troops, and were lined up to chow down on the defenders of the Red flag as well.

  
It was going to be messy.

* * *

Her Janissary Bey finally dealt the deathblow to the last Grimm behemoth. There were still scattered packs of Grimm about, but their strength was broken. Yang just had to advance and hold the Blue flag with her two harrowed heavy infantry units and decimated drop troopers.

  
Jaune shook his head. "Yeah, tell all the civilians at Blue that you're bravely securing the area, while the MegaArmy is off fighting literally everyone else."

  
"Except the Grimm." Yang pointed out. "And including two different factions of Astral Knights. Good luck explaining that to the TLA. You'd get halfway through your explanation, and Blam! Executed for treason."

  
"Yeah, I am not worried about the TLA." The MegaArmy had been all but annihilated. A few light vehicles had managed to keep their distance, and some scout units had slipped through enemy ranks, but largely... "Can't execute me if I die in battle."

  
"The dice have not been on your side, Jaune." Ruby would have been much more conciliatory if she hadn't been grinning like a maniac. The Ghûl Guard Captain was basically the last one standing from the giant melee. For every kill she made, she became stronger. And there had been a lot of killing. Nora had diverted her Vorpagon Rex into the fray, and the Captain had almost lost to it. But the last round of combat had let the Captain get the kill, and suddenly, she was back at full health, with bonuses on top of that... it hadn't been pretty. Apart from her initial volley on Jaune's armor, Yang had stayed out of it. Which may not have been the most satisfying choice, given her army's skill in close quarters battle, but it did mean that she was the only one with a full strength unit anywhere near there. She wasn't sure if she could take the Ghûl Guard Captain, regardless. Maybe if she could get her flame tank in position... Yang formed up her mostly intact heavy infantry and her tank, and looked around for targets.

  
Nora's numberless hordes had taken the Yellow flag. Too many of the Ghûl Guard were committed to the scrum for Ruby to really contest that. Ruby's drop pods had landed badly off-target. Right in the middle of the melee, which was good for slaughter, less good for preventing Nora from achieving her objectives.

  
The Feldauphin had managed to win through the Vorpalites long enough to secure the Red flag, and were now desperately sprinting back across the map. Towards Yang's forces. The Red flag itself was in the middle of her ranks, just north of the plaza Yang had started in. The Feldauphin were still being harried by Weiss' remaining hoverjet troopers. Which, since the main body of Aeldauphin had been wiped out, were being very effectively micromanaged by Weiss. Jaune also had some unexpected AA guns, and it had felled the last of the Feldauphin aircraft before the Vorpalites had swallowed them.

  
By this point, Blake's forces were in full retreat. She wasn't even pretending to trade shots with the hoverjet troopers, or swooping down on isolated units. Just moving on west. Back towards Yang.

  
Yang wasn't sure if she really had the forces to stop them. Jaune hadn't exactly gone into details about how they were going to figure out who had won, just mentioned something about a points system. Blake having a secret objective didn't exactly set her mind at ease, either. What was Blake going to do?

* * *

The turns were going around much faster now. Nora left her Vvvvvvorpalite cannons and a few escorts on objective Yellow, and was throwing the rest against Ruby's commander. Jaune was trying to concentrate his forces again, to throw them at the Ghûl Guard Captain in a desperate effort to achieve one of his objectives. He was staying well back from the current Vorpalite attacks, though. Probably hoping to dash in and kill the Captain when she was at a low ebb. Bloated on stolen Aura, Ruby's Captain was having a grand old time of it, tearing Vorpalites apart like a bloody goddess.

  
Yang had decided that throwing her tank and infantry escort into that mess wouldn't be to her advantage at all, so she'd sent them around to attack Nora's bioplasma cannons. Her Janissaries had just purged the Vorpalites guarding the artillery, so it was just a matter of killing the guns next turn, and taking Yellow. The rest of her understrength units were in cover in and around Blue, keeping the citizens it represented safe. There had been a few Grimm attacks, but it was otherwise quiet. The few remaining Grimm were skulking about the edges of the battlefield, looking for isolated units to pounce on.

  
But it was Blake's turn now. And given the absurd movement of her units, she could surround Yang's troops easily. They hadn't clashed this battle yet, and the Feldauphin and Janissaries seemed poorly suited to fight each other. The Feldauphin were highly mobile terror troops, difficult to land hits on, and had fletchette weapons that tore apart lightly armored troops. They'd ripped apart the MegaArmy soldiers and Vorpalite swarms that had gotten in their way. But the Janissaries were heavily armored elites, with short range weapons, and barely average mobility (drop troop deployments aside). The Feldauphin could surround the Janissaries, but could they do anything once they were there?

  
And there were the Aeldauphin hoverjet troopers. Yang knew they had ammo for dealing with heavily armored units. And her ability to strike back at them was limited, given the difference in mobility. One of her Janissaries might get lucky with a flame spear, but aside from that...

  
Blake wheeled nearly all of her army around, and encircled the hoverjet troopers. Brought most of them down with electro-torment nets, absurd acrobatics, and neural agonizers. The remaining battered Feldauphin unit, one figure carrying the Red flag, just kept booking for the west edge of the table, and escape. They ran out of movement right by objective Blue, took shelter in an alley open to fire from Yang's troops.

  
"Hey Yang?" Blake looked up at her, looking worried. "Mind keeping me safe from that CyberBeowolf pack? I'm pretty sure they're going to charge me." She pointed, drew a line between her vulnerable infantry and the slavering Grimm.

  
"Ugh, don't listen to her." Weiss griped. The last of her hoverjet troopers had engaged their afterburners, and broken out of the Feldauphin cordon. Settled to ground around objective Green, in Yang's starting position. Called in emergency reinforcements via portalbeams. The Aeldauphin militia fell into position around the objective. "Just let the Grimm eat her."

  
Ruby started rolling her Captain's many, many attacks. "Yeah, you can't let Blake win, Yang. You can stop her, and you don't have to do a thing."

  
Watching in dismay as her Vorpalites splattered under the sole surviving Ghûl Guard's assault, Nora said, "While we're asking Yang to do things, can you help me kill this crazy post-human vampire? I'm pretty sure that she's never going to stop killing at this point."

  
Jaune nodded. "Yeah, help would be good. If the Vvvvvvorpalite cannons and the flame tank and my armor all wear the captain down, we _might_ be able to kill her with a rush."

  
Her kill frenzy on hold until her next turn, Ruby passed the turn to Nora. Who promptly aimed her cannons at the Ghûl Guard Captain, and pulled her surviving bugs out of the blast radius.

  
"See Yang?" Nora said, shaking her dice. "Not even going to shoot at your troops." Managed to blow off three-quarters of the Captain's health with a couple of lucky plasma hits.

  
Having managed to rally some of his troops, Jaune called in an artillery barrage from HQ, dropping it on the Captain. Getting her down to a sliver of health. Throwing together a firing line, he directed laserfire at the captain, but couldn't manage to get the kill. "C'mon, Yang. The captain is _almost_ dead. One axeblow, or a single shot from your tank. That's all we're asking for."

  
Jaune ran the program to determine Grimm actions, and, sure enough, the CyberBeowolves started loping at the Feldauphin flag carrier. He looked at the units. "So that's what, eight 'wolves and five DELFs? Underjaw shotguns go off-" he rolled the attacks. "-Five hits. Only three wounds."

  
Sighing, Bake tipped over three of her Feldauphin.

  
"Aaaand closing to CC." Jaune started scooting the Grimm forward. Just the flag carrier and a spare left.

  
Yang held up a hand. "Hold on. They're in my overwatch now." She queued up the requisite dice on her scroll. "Flame spears... six hits. And they're Grimm, so I can re-roll failures to wound." More electronic dice rolling. "Five wounds."

  
Jaune knocked over most of the pack, hands poised over the remaining three. "All done?"

  
"Not quite. My Bey has a masterwork plasma carbine, and she's in range too. Overclocking for an extra shot." Yang checked her army sheet, entered the dice, and rolled. "Eeesh. Okay, so two hits, and the carbine is threatening to blow up."

  
Ruby shrugged. "That's plasma weapons for you."

  
Turning away, Jaune started looking through a box. "I've got the plasma misfire table in here somewhere, hold on."

  
"I'm just going to resolve those hits first, so I'll know what my Bey may have just killed herself for." Yang tapped her scroll. "Well, it was effective at least. Two hits, at three wounds each." She reached out and laid two more of the CyberBeowolves on their side. "If two Feldauphin Dervishes can't handle a single Grimm, I'm going to have questions."

  
"Got it!" Jaune emerged from rummaging in the box. "Roll 2d6."

  
"Uhh, 5."

  
Jaune frowned. "I was hoping for a 4 or lower. That's basically instant death." He read, "'5) The weapon overheats violently, rendering it unusable for the rest of combat. After battle, it can be salvaged with a-' Don't care right now, skipping ahead. 'The wielder throws it aside, but takes 1d3 wounds, and their firing arm is injured.'"

  
Yang rolled. "Aaaaargh. Three wounds. I guess it basically blew my Bey's arm off. She's down to one wound."

  
"And the close combat between the Grimm and the Feldauphin..." Jaune and Blake rolled their respective attacks.

  
Blake laughed. "Bad dog." She knocked the last Grimm over. "Thanks for the help, Yang." She smiled.

  
It may or may not have been worth it to the Janissary Bey, but it was definitely worth it to Yang. But she couldn't get distracted. Yang resolved a few attacks against nearby Grimm, and turned her attention to the east, and her flame tank.

  
"Okay, bugs, time for some fire and axe." She started rolling attacks on the Vvvvvvorpalite cannons.

  
"Yang, Ruby's _right there_. Almost dead." Nora pointed at the captain for emphasis.

  
"And I'll deal with the impending vampire-angel apocalypse after resolving the ongoing Vorpalite apocalypse."

* * *

"Okay, so the MegaArmy got two points, since Ruby's Captain did die. No other points, since the Bey's still alive, and I didn't end the game in possession of the Captain's body. Yang?"

  
"Grimm almost totally destroyed, including their behemoths. Currently holding objective Blue."

  
"Eight points, then. All goals fully achieved. Nora?"

  
"Well, I _had_ Yellow, and then the flame tank rolled in. But the MegaArmy, Aeldauphin, Grimm, and Ghûl Guard are all pretty much gone."

  
"Five points. One goal achieved, and two rounds of holding Yellow, minus one point for not currently holding it. Ruby?"

  
"MegaArmy command is **gone**, personally executed the Vorpagon Rex, Whitley's dead. The Bey and the Feldauphin Exarch are still alive. The Grimm, MegaArmy, Aeldauphin and Vorpalites are broken."

  
"Eight point, minus one not having any units left. So seven. And our two players with secret objectives. Weiss, what was your secret objective?"

  
"Prevent at least half your opponents from achieving both of their objectives. You and Nora didn't do that. And I'm currently holding objective Green. So it just depends if Blake succeeded at her secret objective."

  
"Currently at four points, then. Blake?"

  
"I got to Red, and escaped with it. And my secret objective was to help a chosen opponent achieve both of their objectives. I chose Yang."

  
"Okay, so Blake is at eight points for achieving both goals. And Weiss, that's three opponents who achieved both their goals. So six points total for you. Looks like the Deldauphin and the Janissaries won this battle. But... **The War is Forever**!"


End file.
